MediaPost

PulsePoint, a global programmatic advertising platform, on Thursday announced new header-bidding solutions, along with enhanced analytics tools designed to boost publishers’ revenue and yield.

While PulsePoint soft-launched the offerings last fall, it’s now unveiling them officially and also debuting BidderExpress, a lighter version of header bidding that’s designed for a quick set-up.

The company spent last fall educating publishers about the header-bidding products and onboarding them. “The main challenge we’ve seen with respect to header bidding is in education,” said Darline Jean, COO, PulsePoint.

Jean said that what makes PulsePoint’s technology different is its built-in contextualizer, which enables the company to categorize a page in real-time. “We know you’re on a very specific page that’s contextualized for a certain type of content, whether it's sports or news. This enables demand-side partners to bid at a higher rate for an audience,” Jean said.

PulsePoint said it has seen average CPMs increase 147% exchange-wide for publishers using the header-bidding products.

PulsePoint’s new offering comes on the heels of Google’s announcement last week that it would bring in the real-time bids of a publisher’s outside exchange partners to its Dynamic allocation product.

For its part, PulsePoint thinks Google’s move is good news: “There’s a big opportunity for publishers to increase programmatic revenues through unified auctions like header bidding. We view Google’s recent news as further leveling the playing field between all players--direct, SSPs (supply-side platforms), exchanges--and finally creating a true unified auction in DoubleClick for Publishers,” Jean said.

“By having auctions occur directly within the publisher framework, publishers will gain more control over programmatic operations and full transparency by bidder,” she added.

The Blogger Network has been using PulsePoint’s header-bidding product and finds it easy to work with, Nathan Putnam, CEO of The Blogger Network, said via email. The Blogger Network also works with header-bidding products from OpenX, AppNexus, Sovrn, AOL, and Index Exchange, and is testing others.

Putnam said that since implementing header bidding, the company has seen increased yield across all publishers by more than 50%.